In the beginning, this was merely "Vampire Quest." It was born of an idea in my brain for a way to do a really slick opening to a quest thread, namely a recently-dusted vampire waking up from their coffin.

Lo and behold, in the very first thread /TG/ showed that it loves to be the little girl by overwhelmingly asking for our vampire to be tiny and female. In that same thread, the idea was born that we were to have a doll collection, as well as our non-Euclidean Castlevania; though initially it was going to involve time-travel and real-world countries, those ideas were thankfully rethought and scrapped.

And so Vampire Doll Quest entered its actual play. Quickly, our newly-named 'heroine', Isabella Katarina Markova, captured the wretched vampire hunter that killed her, and handed him over to her teeth-eating porcelain dolls to be punished. Thus it became known that our sweet, childlike vampire was actually "FUCKING BROOTAL", quote unquote. The interrogation revealed little, however; merely that whomever sent the vampire hunter had one of our dolls held hostage, and that they were a wary opponent.

Around the same time, we were starting to get our first glimpses of the world at large. Grand Victoria, (AKA "The Imperium of Japchangland") was introduced, a maritime, theocratic nation of airships and intrigue. We began to subvert the mayor of an industrial town named Mark here in Victoria; but as usual, fair dealing was too slow. We needed to make money.

>>25845913And so we discovered Eyesocket, technological hellhole of squandered potential. Supposedly a republic, but truly ruled by the rich. From here, we took a number of slaves that were to be thorns in our sides for some time to come: Rose, a bashful thing skilled in healing; Sophia, a firebrand and artist with a knife; Maxwell, an easily-manipulable but competent man; Slab, a massive thug with the brains of a brick; and Thomas, a sorcerer with a head for numbers.

The rest of the slaves were sold on at an excellent price to an Earl Blackford, fellow vampire, in order to buy ourselves a new airship yard. Taking possession of it, we improved conditions, increased profits, and only had to scream at one incompetent foreman in the process. But when we returned, we found that Rose had gone missing.

Fortunately, our porcelain dolls proved to have a talent for fleshcrafting; and from the left-over slaves we had given them, they created a number of horrors to hunt down the missing servant. From this first experiment were born Scarlet, she-of-the-bloody-hair; the Angel, implacable hunter; Fluffy, consuming hellhound; and the Tin Soldiers, toy men to guard our castle. We were pleased to see that the Hunter who had opposed us had become a weapon in our service under the care of our dolls; that is why our hellhound bears the name 'fluffy.'

Scarlet and the Angel were dispatched to find Rose, and returned successful and alive, having frightened an entire village in the gothic wilderness of Ulvenwald into returning her to us. In return, Rose's life was bound to an ordinary flower that shared her name; that flower was given to Scarlet, to shepherd as she wished.

Having turned Rose over to Scarlet, we took a moment to consider who might have reason to harm us. Only three suspects presented themselves; our 'sister', Evangeline Scarlet, a feral vampire by the name of Nalus, and a cultured, manipulative vampire much like ourselves: Agen Lioncourt.

>>25845936Attempting to scry on our missing doll, we were grievously injured by the backlash. In a fit of frenzied hunger, we almost killed Scarlet. Unwilling to take a chance and accidentally destroy one of our servants, we instead fed on an Ulvenwald villager; when we did so unsubtly, we subjugated the village entire and enslaved its people.

Among those people was a native of Ulvenwald by the name of Ahote, a seasoned supernatural hunter. We decided to give him a chance to prove himself to us by hunting down the vampire Nalus; while sorting out our servants, our maid Sophia attempted to stab us to death, breaking our compulsion and coming very close to killing us. Leaving her with the dolls to be tortured, we departed, bringing with us Slab, turned into a massive huntsman, and his pack of ceramic hounds.

Though Nalus brought a pack of wolves of his own with him, we destroyed him easily and drank his lifeblood; but he was not the culprit. Returning home, we met Ahote's tribal leader, Dowanhowee, whose face shone with the power of the sun; a mortal even we thought it best to bargain with. The deal was simple; the Espowye tribe would give us the use of their hunters in exchange for our protection and the use of our ceramic 'hounds.'

While the hounds were gone and the hunters not yet arrived, the Victorian Inquisition attacked us at the very seat of our power, freeing Sophia from her confinement and making an attempt on our life that succeeded; though we were not given to the true death, we were left as dust for a day while Scarlet drove off the intruders and handled the fallout in our absence, Sophia's continued hatred of us leading directly to her death.

This obvious attempt on our life left us with no doubt in our mind as to who had our doll; it had to be Agen Lioncourt. Thus, we rode out and invaded his castle directly, breaking through his threshold despite the force it put against our uninvited entry, and finally tore his throat out under the night sky.

You roll the name over in your mind, a joy after 500 years caught under the weight of the surname of a sire that you loathed and despised.

You are Isabella Katarina Lioncourt, tenth of the line of Lestat. You have killed two vampires who offended you and drunk their lifeblood. Your servants are many; your growing power is noted in the halls of the elders. You are one of the greatest fleshcrafters of the age. You caused a revolution entirely by accident. Your collection of porcelain dolls is a wonder to behold, and your non-Euclidian estate is a marvel to the eyes. Though you may look a twelve-year-old girl, you have proven beyond a shadow of the doubt that you are not to be trifled with.

>>25846008I'm aware of that, but they /are/ the ones that asked for the thread. It's been two months, some of the earlier events may need refreshing. Not to mention I /would/ like it to be reasonably possible for people to get into the quest if they didn't read the first few threads.

>>25846161>I /would/ like it to be reasonably possible for people to get into the quest if they didn't read the first few threads.And this wont do that. This is not the easy and convenient entry point you think it is.

>>25846301There is none. By now people either care enough about your quest to read it or they don't. They will gloss over the recap just like they do every other thread you make. If they don't have you outright filtered already.

>>25846111>Does Isabella turn Maxwell?who is this again>Does Isabella make Rose have real regard for her?yes>Does Isabella break her dependency on Scarlet?which scarlet, sister scarlet or bloodhair scarlet>Does Isabella win over Ahote's clan?yes>Does Scarlet make Rose her doting servant?yes>Does Scarlet successfully hide her hunger by dumping it in Maxwell?yes>Does Scarlet successfully make Ahote respect her?yes>Does Rose convince Maxwell to take risks for her?sure why not>Does Rose convince Ahote's people to take risks for her?probably not>Does Maxwell manage to convince Ahote to train him rather than proving his own strength? mans gotta prove himself

Disclaimer: I read quickly through the posts. For instance, I don't understand any of the conflits you offer to settle.

If you do some other recap, you should maybe try to do it after a timeskip, no right before. So that the threads are about some trivia, not big decisions. Maybe use the same words in your questions and your recap, so that a search brings up something (eg "clan", "turn", "regard").

>>25846111>Isabella:>Does Isabella turn Maxwell?Egh, I really don't see any use for him, even up to now. He's adamant on being turned, which makes me think if we turn him, he'll try and usurp us with his newfound power. Still, I'm curious to see him try, never mind see what he does with it. Sure, let's indulge him and turn him. If he fucks up, we'll just kill him.>Does Isabella make Rose have real regard for her?Of course.>Does Isabella break her dependency on Scarlet?Not quite. I mean, Isabella worked fine on her own, but now that she'll be out and about more, someone may have to watch the house more often.>Does Isabella win over Ahote's clan?I should hope so.

>Scarlet:>Does Scarlet make Rose her doting servant?She can try, and I don't see why not.>Does Scarlet successfully hide her hunger by dumping it in Maxwell?You mean her blood thirst? I suppose Max will be good for something.>Does Scarlet successfully make Ahote respect her?Maybe. She's still an aberration.

>Rose:>Does Rose convince Maxwell to take risks for her?Not with Scarlet and Isabella watching her.>Does Rose convince Ahote's people to take risks for her?Not if it jeopardizes the pact with Isabella.

>Maxwell/Snackwell:>Does Maxwell manage to convince Ahote to train him rather than proving his own strength?Doubt it. Ahote would find him petulant and impulsive, not a good student.

>>25846874>>25846876>>25846905yep, best way to avoid it: if you're ever going to archive a thread, archive it as soon as you make it, it will auto update with the rest of the thread content once an hour until it 404s

Physically, she is 13, but her actual age is around 350. She has no living family: the closest she might have is her sister Evangeline, turned by the same sire, who though unrelated by blood, is nonetheless close to her heart.

As for her sire... He is as dead as Isabella and her sister could make him. Many vampires have reason to hate their sires. Isabella and Evangeline had much more than most.

Following his death, Evangeline plunged into politics to create a name untainted by association with her sire, while Isabella withdrew from society, becoming a recluse in her sire's castle who rarely receives visitors. Over time, she creates a collection of living porcelain dolls to amuse herself with.

This might have gone on forever had someone not tried to break her toys. Enraged, the spark of action kindled, and for the first time in centuries she set foot outside her castle.

Since then, she has gathered a form of twisted family to her, made of those enslaved by her or created by her. Scarlet, a bloody-haired construct in the shape of a woman, acts as her 'sister'; by sorcerous means, she presses a timid girl named Rose into her service; with bargaining, she binds a tattooed brave by the name of Ahote as her bodyguard; and with the promise of immortality, she makes a calculating man named Maxwell her spy.

>>25846111Isabella:Does Isabella turn Maxwell? Maybe, if he performs exceptionally well in Mark than yes, we make sure he's of a decent age before doing so he doesn't look like a fucking kid forever. And we try to keep good relations with him afterwards.

Does Isabella make Rose have real regard for her? Regard yes, respect yes, actual love and affection no. She appreciates all of the stuff she's learned because of Isabella and the fact that she lives somewhere nice and is treated reasonably well, but she always knows that our kindness can be fragile at times.

Does Isabella break her dependency on Scarlet? Yes and no. She's still very close to Scarlet, dotes on her a bit, and may project more than a little bit of her various issues onto her, but she trusts Scarlet to do her own thing and is capable without Scarlet being around.

Does Isabella win over Ahote's clan? I think so, yes. The Espowye have been vastly empowered by our relationship, they have a lot more modern weapons and amenities while not losing their roots, Hounds and other hunting beasts we've made have become a large part of their life and the Espowye have become a important part of Isabella's more direct power. While Isabella may have fleshcrafted them beasts and Hounds she probably hasn't done all that much fleshcrafting to improve the members of the clan itself, but perhaps has improved a few of them while keeping them mostly human, Ahote is probably among their number if any are, as those she holds closest to her.

>>25847381Scarlet:Does Scarlet make Rose her doting servant? Yes. Rose actually likes Scarlet and trusts her for the most part. They do good work together with Rose as a very talented surgeon and assistant for Scarlet's projects. They get along reasonably well at this point. Rose's Rose has been planted in its own plot in Scarlet's Garden where is has become a rather beautiful rose bush.

Does Scarlet successfully hide her hunger by dumping it in Maxwell? Not all of it, when she truly needs hunger concealed she'll use Maxwell, but usually she sates herself via other means.

Does Scarlet successfully make Ahote respect her? More of a grudging respect than them liking each other. They respect what the other is good at even if Ahote might not like what Scarlet is good at, but they can work together and not complain too much.

Rose:Does Rose convince Maxwell to take risks for her? Only those that don't go against Isabella. So some, but not the really big stuff.

Does Rose convince Ahote's people to take risks for her? There's a lot of them, some she'd be closer to than others. None of them are going to go against Isabella for her, it's just not worth it, but for the ones who have grown close to her they'd be willing to do a decent bit. Enough to let her operate semi-independently.

Maxwell/Snackwell:

Does Maxwell manage to convince Ahote to train him rather than proving his own strength? Not much. Ahote might teach him the basics, and be willing to spar when he's available, but I don't think Ahote would teach him how he fights. He might encourage Maxwell to find his own ways of fighting and point out what is working and what isn't, but he wouldn't take a truly mentorish role.

>>25847024In the process of retrieving her doll, she kills two vampires and claims their estates, making her formally Isabella Katarina Lioncourt. From this new power base, consisting of a loyal tribe of savages, an airship yard and fleet, and a castle that defies dimensions, she reaches for power- power enough to rival her sister and prove her strength as a vampire beyond a shadow of a doubt. In the process, she may well spark a revolution in the mortal world, and make powerful enemies, both mortal and immortal.

>>25846111>Isabella:>Does Isabella turn Maxwell?Depends how well he does in Mark. Loyal and hardworking minions do deserve a reward, after all.>Does Isabella make Rose have real regard for her? She's happy that she's not dead and has a place to live, but she still fears Isabella more than anything else.>Does Isabella break her dependency on Scarlet?Not really. Scarlet is still basically a surrogate sister, but she more or less has free reign in Castlevania. >Does Isabella win over Ahote's clan?A little. They're probably still wary, but after seeing what Isabella is capable of they are in favour of establishing closer ties.

>Scarlet:>Does Scarlet make Rose her doting servant?She's learned that quiet obedience is the best way to survive, and after accepting that she's a little happier about the situation.>Does Scarlet successfully hide her hunger by dumping it in Maxwell?I figured she was just drinking from the servants, given that we got a bunch of new ones from Agen.>Does Scarlet successfully make Ahote respect her?I'd say no, to be honest. They don't really care to talk to each other barring important issues that need taken care of.

>Rose:>Does Rose convince Maxwell to take risks for her?After he gets turned (If he gets turned), yes, but due to a healthy fear/respect for Isabella, they keep anything shady to a minimum.>Does Rose convince Ahote's people to take risks for her?They wouldn't want to upset the alliance that has been brokered by making underhanded dealings. She would probably have befriended some of them, though, given that aside from the mindcuddled servants they're the only humans in Castlevania.>Maxwell/Snackwell:>Does Maxwell manage to convince Ahote to train him rather than proving his own strength?Nope, he's still a weakling. Relies on his wits rather than brute force, anyway.

Are we going to be rolling for any of this, or are we just taking the narrative by the balls? I don't mind either way, just wondering.

Can you remind us what other things are we going to do in the time-skip? Seems that it is focused on character developments but there is pretty much nothing about growing our power.For one, I would like us to make full use of our holdings. We have a village and a castle in magic murder woods which are pretty much empty, we should do something with them and make them generate profit.How about improving our shipyard further and buying out others? Using the mayor further for lucrative deals (we could pretty much take all the government deals for ourself) and taxbreaks. We could get into other industries too.What about or magic bookkeeper, seems that there's nothing about him.We should increase our guards by several magnitudes, turning it into an army. We could try to improve what we have. I don't really like the Tin men as they are, they could use upgrading.

If Ahote's people want to use it, we could do that. If not, we should either hire workers or kidnap people from Eyesocket and put them there. Of course, we should provide meaningful protection for the village, few squads of tin-men and hounds should do the trick.

>>25847906Well for the village in Ulvenwald, with the Espowye around we can easily have all sorts of critters and beasts, those natural and those imported from Eyesocket, dealt with and brought to us for Fleshcrafting material.

As for the village, we can then populate it as it would be rather safe under our protection and have something done there. Though I'm not sure what, maybe producing narcotics and the like, that'll make use of its pretty much utter solitude, but if anyone else has ideas I'd love to hear them.

>>25847950There's a lot of stuff we can make. We're an extremely good fleshcrafter and we ought to show off a bit to draw more people in for consultations. We obviously want more Hounds, those are very useful. We'll want some big armored suits of armor with very powerful, if not necessarily human looking underneath, bipedal fleshcrafted soldiers in them disguised by the armor bound to their flesh. Give them shields, big ass swords/axes, possibly heavy rifles, cannons, and/or machinegun like things that normal humans couldn't handle.

We'll want Humans++ for bodyguards and assassins, things that can blend in but are respectively tougher and stronger or faster, lither, and have concealed weapons.

We'll want a lot of flyers, both light flyers with rifles and pistols and heavy murder flyers like grotesques.

Recycle various Eyesocket projects that were dumped in Ulvenwald and up their intelligence and refine how they were made to improve them.

Sergeants for our forces that can command them effectively and are more intelligent than the others and good at tactics are needed for the Tin Soldiers and similar projects.

Someone suggested an Overseer, like a Zerg Cerebrate, to keep an eye on things for us and direct our various projects around effectively and not take up our time.

>>25848292Sophia's long dead. The Inquisition tried to bust her out, and after we got dusted, Scarlet destroyed Sophia's body and captured what was left of her mind and spirit in a crystal, which Isabella proceeded to crush underfoot in dramatic fashion.

I think we should aim to have our flesh-crafted horrors to have higher masquerade if not, at least not make them look monstrous. Hounds could look like very oversized dogs or wolves, which could make people think that they are some exotic breed or whatever. Angles could look like, well, angles as we know it. Sure, they wont pass masquerade check but at least they would look nice. And stuff like that.

>>25848275Also, we'll want Art Projects to show off. Experiments in trying new things. Just to see where we can take our craft and apply what we learn from it to the rest of our works.

Some ideas. See how sleek and fast we can make things. Can we make things that regenerate on their own? Can we make a being out of living blood and implant it within a normal person in a symbiotic relationship? Can make centaurs out of bears and other nastier beasts fusing the ferocity of the beast and intelligence of a man, allowing for perfect cavalry tactics? Can we make more things capable of magic? Can we make things with powerful venom that can incapacitate even supernatural things? Can we make things with perfectly concealed natural weapons, able to shoot poisoned darts from their wrists, retract claws from their hands, screeches that deafen those who hear it, maybe even incapacitating them or hurting them by bursting their eyes or eardrums? Archers and gunmen with unnatural accuracy and skill.

Look through our books and look at animals for interesting traits, like a spider's web, a hound's smell, a mantis shrimp's punch, a chameleon's ability to change appearance, and so on, and magnify them and apply them to a project, see what we can make.

Many of the projects will fail and we'll scrap them, but we'll learn from them and find something in them to improve things or use them as specialized agents.

>>25848275The dolls are going to be doing the brunt of the work, so we want a few templates that they can easily crank out en masse.

In the meantime, we'll be crafting art - Unique pieces, like Angel, Fluffy and Scarlet. Obviously it's up to AS what exactly we accomplish there.

As for these templatesFast Attack - Hounds, obviously. More of them.Guards - Tin Soldiers, a lot more of those, too.Overseer - To efficiently direct the Tin Soldiers, who have no initiative. Heavily armoured, but not particularly well armed.Light Flier - Amalaric Sniper (These guys >>25847950), one set of wings, one set of arms. Should be good at scouting. Arm it with a crossbow or something.Heavy Flier - Same as the light flier, but two sets of wings and two sets of arms, equip them with plate armour, give them two rifles or two swords and shields.Heavy Assault - Fleshcraft tank. Quadruped centaur type with two primary arms and two vestigial arms. Primary arms should be oversized, with a retractable bone blade. Vestigial arms could carry pistols or some such, for minor ranged covering fire. Alternatively, they could be given a fuckhuge weapon to carry and retract the blades, using the primary arms to hold it and the vestigial arms to fire.Assassin/Subterfuge - Human, but generally improved. Maybe bind some metal to the bones, give them retractable claws, nightvision, enhanced leg muscles for jumping, that sort of thing. They should be able to pass for human unless you cut them open.Knight - Much the same as the assassins, but bound to heavy armour. Machineguns, kiteshields and spears are the order of the day. Maybe tridents or something.

>>25848703When it comes to building our army, there was passing agreement on a chess theme. The toy soldiers are the pawns, Scarlet is the Queen, Isabella is the King. I think Fluffy, the Pack and the Huntsman are collectively our Rooks.

PHASE 1: Boom1. Build trade fleet. Once completed have it ply routes and cargoes that encourage reckless investment spending (construction, colonies, speculative mining, wars).2. Abduct/gently dominate a new crop of servants to act as key agents for shell companies and revolutionaries. Use existing businessmen and labor leaders where possible but attract no attention.3. Establish banking network and begin loaning money to increasingly risky ventures. Simultaneously nurture the growth of a revolutionary workers party.4. Establish criminal enterprise (via Snackwell?) and have them start laundering our un-money into the economy and spreading propaganda about the evils of the royalty and their running dog lackeys in the church.5. Let the money supply carry the economic boom on it's own and start transitioning out of investment sectors and into hard commodities (metals, timber, food, arms) as slowly as possible so as not to arouse suspicion.

PHASE 2: Bust6. As the economy heats up, start agitating publicly for workers rights, avoid outright support and cloak our intentions as concern for stability. Pour fake money into the system through the use of fractional reserve banking. By this point nobody should notice the anomalous increase in credit.7. Once the furor reaches it's peak give our shell companies orders to sell shares en masse and fall back into hard commodities.8. As the currency collapses, secretly funnel arms and material support to the rebels.9. Intensify support and assassinate opponents once the revolution starts to gain traction.10. Use our plants in the revolution to secure our personal future in the People's Republic of Mark. Get involved in party politics to stay on top.11. Rally the people under the banner of Great Helmsloli Isabella and conquer the world.

I disagree with the last point however. We should always act as the power behind the Secretary-General.

>>25846111>Does Isabella turn Maxwell?Snackwell? Only if it becomes absolutely necessary to control him. And then we'd have to kill him before our power over him wanes.>Does Isabella make Rose have real regard for her?Absolutely. Let the cuddling commence.>Does Isabella break her dependency on Scarlet?I'm gonna say no because it seems out of character for her.>Does Isabella win over Ahote's clan?I like the idea of them continuing to have a very tense but mutually beneficial relationship neither can afford to end.Scarlet:>Does Scarlet make Rose her doting servant?Sounds fun.>Does Scarlet successfully hide her hunger by dumping it in Maxwell?Hahaha I like this.>Does Scarlet successfully make Ahote respect her?Mmmm I'm gonna say no unless it becomes plot relevant.

>Does Rose convince Maxwell to take risks for her?Only if they both somehow escape our influence.>Does Rose convince Ahote's people to take risks for her?Sounds like a better outlet for their discontent.Maxwell/Snackwell:>Does Maxwell manage to convince Ahote to train him rather than proving his own strength? I can't see Ahote liking Maxwell on any level.

Isabella:>Does Isabella turn Maxwell?Maybe, depends on how well he does. Even if the answer is yes he's still lower on the totem pole than Scarlet>Does Isabella make Rose have real regard for her?Fear and awe, lots of fear and awe. Almost worship>Does Isabella break her dependency on Scarlet?Yes... and No. Their relationship matures as Scarlet starts to really come into her own as Isabella's trusted second in command, though they are still close emotionally.>Does Isabella win over Ahote's clan?Basically yeah, It probably helps that in the timeskip there is a decent chance of their being turnover in leadership. Either way, Ahote's clan grows more prosperous under Isabella's patronage, and more dependent on said patronage.

Scarlet:>Does Scarlet make Rose her doting servant?Yep.>Does Scarlet successfully hide her hunger by dumping it in Maxwell?Oh yes.>Does Scarlet successfully make Ahote respect her?Yes, as part of the coming into her own bit. Everyone takes orders from Scarlet when Isabella isn't around.

Rose:>Does Rose convince Maxwell to take risks for her?Not really no, although they sort of get along they are both to much in awe/afraid of Isabella and Scarlet to cross them.>Does Rose convince Ahote's people to take risks for her?To afraid to even ask.

Maxwell/Snackwell:>Does Maxwell manage to convince Ahote to train him rather than proving his own strength? Nah